"Having said that, which particular AQ IC would you recommend ?"
Any of the copper IC's with the dbs system should work very well. There aren't huge differences between the newest models and some of the older ones, so if you are willing to go used, you can save a lot of money. I have Jaguar, Columbia, Panther and Colorado and all of them are pretty close in SQ. They just work in any application. If you're willing to take a chance, I also have some Cheetah. They're silver and don't always sound as good as copper. But when they do work, they sound great. So far, the only connections I use the Cheetah for are going from source components to a preamp, and from my TT to my phono preamp. But from my phono preamp to my preamp copper is better.
I wouldn't worry about the shielding. Just go by what sounds best.
Any of the copper IC's with the dbs system should work very well. There aren't huge differences between the newest models and some of the older ones, so if you are willing to go used, you can save a lot of money. I have Jaguar, Columbia, Panther and Colorado and all of them are pretty close in SQ. They just work in any application. If you're willing to take a chance, I also have some Cheetah. They're silver and don't always sound as good as copper. But when they do work, they sound great. So far, the only connections I use the Cheetah for are going from source components to a preamp, and from my TT to my phono preamp. But from my phono preamp to my preamp copper is better.
I wouldn't worry about the shielding. Just go by what sounds best.